Panto promises ‘a lot of slapstick and humour’

HE’D never heard of “panto” until he arrived in Ireland, but Argentinean actor Marcus Bale will be wowing audiences playing a domestic appliance with a French accent this Christmas — and loving every minute of it.

The 35-year-old from Buenos Aires plays Thing-A-Ma-Jig , the Beast’s eccentric servant in Beauty And The Beast which opens at the Everyman on Saturday.

He thoroughly enjoys the slapstick humour of pantomime and the intense audience participation which is a hallmark of the Irish panto tradition: “I never heard of panto until I came to Ireland. Pantomime to me was a type of theatre without words, so when I came to Ireland and saw it for the first time, it was a completely new concept to me.